OBSERVATIONS ON AN ETHNIC CLASSIFICATION OF IDIOTS

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OBSERVATIONS ON AN ETHNIC CLASSIFICATION OF
IDIOTS.*
By J. LANGDON H. DOWN, M.D., Lond.
Those who have given any attention to congeni-
tal mental lesions, must have been frequently
puzzled how to arrange, in any satisfactory way,
the different classes of this defect which may have
come under their observation. Nor will the dif-
ficulty be lessened by an appeal to what has been
written on the subject. The systems of classi-
fication are generally so vague and artificial, that,
not only do they assist but feebly, in any mental
arrangement of the phenomena which are present-
ed, but they completely fail in exerting any practi-
cal influence on the subject.
The medical practitioner who may be consulted
in any given case, has, perhaps in a very early
condition of the child's life, to give an opinion on
points of vital importance as to the present condi-
tion and probable future of the little one. More-
over, he may be pressed as to the question, whether
the supposed defect dates from any cause subse-
quent to the birth or not. Has the nurse dosed the
child with opium? Has the little one met with any
accident? Has the instrumental interference which
maternal safety demanded, been the cause of what
seems to the anxious parents, a vacant future? Can
it be that when away from the family attendant
the calomel powders were judiciously prescribed?
Can, in fact, the strange anomalies which the child
presents, be attributed to the numerous causes
which maternal solicitude conjures to the imagina¬
tion, in order to account for a condition, for which
any cause is sought, rather than hereditary taint or
parental influence. Will the systems of classi¬
fication, either all together, or any one of them,
assist the medical adviser in the opinion he is to
present, or the suggestions which he is to tender to
the anxious parent? I think that they will entirely
fail him in the matter, and that he will have in
many cases to make a guarded diagnosis and
prognosis, so guarded, in fact, as to be almost
valueless, or to venture an authoritative assertion
which the future may perhaps confirm.
I have for some time had my attention directed
to the possibility of making a classification of the
feeble-minded, by arranging them around various
ethnic standards,—in other words, framing a natu¬
ral system to supplement the information to be
derived by an inquiry into the history of the case.
I have been able to find among the large
number of idiots and imbeciles which come under
my observation, both at Earlswood and the out-pa¬
tient department of the Hospital, that a consider¬
able portion can be fairly referred to one of the
great divisions of the human family other than the
class from which they have sprung. Of course,
there are numerous representatives of the great
Caucasian family. Several well-marked examples
of the Ethiopian variety have come under my
notice, presenting the characteristic malar bones,
the prominent eyes, the puffy lips, and retreating
chin. The woolly hair has also been present,
although not always black, nor has the skin ac¬
quired pigmentary deposit. They have been speci¬
mens of white negroes, although of European
descent.
Some arrange themselves around the Malay
variety, and present in their soft, black, curly hair,
their prominent upper jaws and capacious mouths,
types of the family which people the South Sea
Islands.
Nor have there been wanting the analogues of
the people who with shortened foreheads, promi¬
nent cheeks, deep-set eyes, and slighdy apish nose,
originally inhabited the American Continent.
The great Mongolian family has numerous rep¬
resentatives, and it is to this division, I wish, in
this paper, to call special attention. A very large
number of congenital idiots are typical Mongols.
So marked is this, that when placed side by side, it
is difficult to believe that the specimens compared
are not children of the same parents. The number
of idiots who arrange themselves around the Mon¬
golian type is so great, and they present such a
close resemblance to one another in mental power,
that I shall describe an idiot member of this racial
division, selected from the large number that have
fallen under my observation.
The hair is not black, as in the real Mongol,
but of a brownish colour, straight and scanty. The
face is flat and broad, and destitute of prominence.
The cheeks are roundish, and extended laterally.
The eyes are obliquely placed, and the internal
canthi more than normally distant from one an¬
other. The palpebrai fissure is very narrow. The
forehead is wrinkled transversely from the con-*Reprinted
from London Hospital Clinical Lectures and
Reports 3:259-262, 1866.
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stant assistance which the levatores palpebrarum
derive from the occipito-frontalis muscle in the
opening of the eyes. The lips are large and thick
with transverse fissures. The tongue is long, thick,
and is much roughened. The nose is small. The
skin has a slight dirty yellowish tinge, and is
deficient in elasticity, giving the appearance of
being too large for the body.
The boy's aspect is such that it is difficult to
realize that he is the child of Europeans, but so
frequently are these characters presented, that
there can be no doubt that these ethnic features
are the result of degeneration.
The Mongolian type of idiocy occurs in more
than ten per cent of the cases which are presented
to me. They are always congenital idiots, and
never result from accidents after uterine life. They
are, for the most part, instances of degeneracy
arising from tuberculosis in the parents. They are
cases which very much repay judicious treatment.
They require highly azotised food with a consider¬
able amount of oleaginous material. They have
considerable power of imitation, even bordering
on being mimics. They are humorous, and a lively
sense of the ridiculous often colours their mimic¬
ry. This faculty of imitation may be cultivated to a
very great extent, and a practical direction given
to the results obtained. They are usually able to
speak; the speech is thick and indistinct, but may
be improved very greatly by a well-directed
scheme of tongue gymnastics. The co-ordinating
faculty is abnormal, but not so defective that it
cannot be greatly strengthened. By systematic
training, considerable manipulative power may be
obtained.
The circulation is feeble, and whatever advance
is made intellectually in the summer, some
amount of retrogression may be expected in the
winter. Their mental and physical capabilities are,
in fact, directly as the temperature.
The improvement which training effects in
them is greatly in excess of what would be
predicated if one did not know the characteristics
of the type. The life expectancy, however, is far
below the average, and the tendency is to the
tuberculosis, which I believe to be the hereditary
origin of the degeneracy.
Apart from the practical bearing of this attempt
at an ethnic classification, considerable philosophi¬
cal interest attaches to it. The tendency in the
present day is to reject the opinion that the
various races are merely varieties of the human
family having a common origin, and to insist that
climatic, or other influences, are insufficient to
account for the different types of man. Here,
however, we have examples of retrogression, or at
all events, of departure from one type and the
assumption of the characteristics of another. If
these great racial divisions are fixed and definite,
how comes it that disease is able to break down
the barrier, and to simulate so closely the features
of the members of another division. I cannot but
think that the observations which I have recorded,
are indications that the differences in the races are
not specific but variable.
These examples of the result ofdegeneracy
among mankind, appear to me to furnish some
arguments in favour of the unity of the human
species.
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